It's an Ugly Business When Fashion and Reality TV Converge

PARIS

As designers have been sending their spring 2009 collections down the runways here, sometimes it has been hard to know whether one was watching a global industry engaged in its most urgently creative sales endeavors or if one was in the midst of a reality show.

Fashion trades on glamour, bitchiness and exclusivity. That keeps people intrigued. But it is that rare industry so focused on the ancillary elements that it often shrugs off the importance of its core product: the clothes.

The equivalent misdirected focus would be akin to Hollywood being so fixated on red-carpet hoopla that it forgets to worry about the sales figures of its films. It would be like the publishing business so busily planning parties and readings that it fails to make sure the books are legible.

No, no. Fashion is like politics, in which lawmakers are so concerned about reelection that they fail to govern.

Perhaps as much as any other industry, fashion has successfully linked itself to the surreal world of reality television. At the fashion shows here, one regularly sees Nina Garcia of Marie Claire and "Project Runway" making her way through a crowd in a darkened tent in search of her seat. There's Anne Slowey of Elle and "Stylista" calling out to a colleague from her perch at a Comme des Garcons presentation. And watch out for Linda Wells of Allure and "Shear Genius" who's trying not to poke anyone in the eye with her umbrella as she leaves the Balenciaga show.

And it's not just the Paris shows that have been transformed into a weird mishmash of a soundstage. Milan and New York were the same way. Rachel Zoe of "The Rachel Zoe Project" inched her way through the paparazzi crowds at the Dolce & Gabbana show. And "Ben" -- the prison guard turned contestant on "Make Me a Super Model" -- was on the runway at the John Bartlett show. And of course, do not forget the juggernaut known as "America's Next Top Model," which has spawned more than a dozen international versions and had one former contestant featured in July's Italian Vogue.

There is more fashion reality TV to come, from "Running in Heels" in conjunction with Marie Claire, to "Blush: The Search for the Next Great Make-Up Artist," which will co-star Hal Rubenstein of InStyle as one of the judges.

The result of so much television exposure has in many ways been beneficial to those in the fashion industry. Certainly it has transformed the participants into TV stars, catapulting designer Michael Kors of "Project Runway" from a respected designer within the industry into a style icon. The same is true of Garcia, whose star status was cemented the moment she became the subject of stories about backbiting and subterfuge in the offices of her former employer, Elle.

The industry is drawn to these collaborations because they promise to draw more eyes to the magazines and the clothes racks. And in some cases, they have. But the industry also seems to be turning over control of its reputation to a medium that does not always have its best interests at heart. Bad fashion -- or more specifically, fashion people behaving badly -- makes good television.

The industry is exploiting something less than admirable: nastiness. All of these shows traffic, to at least some degree, in on-screen meltdowns, exhausting competitions, demoralizing critiques and personal rivalries. They make hay of the fashion industry's reputation for being a bastion of junior high personalities.

The recent attention the industry has received recalls the deluge of excitement that crashed down on fashion shows back in the late 1980s when celebrities such as Susan Sarandon, Julia Roberts and Robert De Niro first started turning up in the front rows -- or in the case of the publicly introverted De Niro, in the second row. The fashion industry received an onslaught of publicity from publications and TV entertainment shows whose interest was less in the silhouettes coming down the runway and more in getting a photo of a starlet staring off into the middle distance of a catwalk. Fashion received a lot of attention, but no one was really looking at the clothes.

But back then, the industry was exploiting its glamorous and enviable aspects: the $10,000-a-strut models, the over-the-top flamboyance, the "fierceness," which back then was wickedly personified by the drag queen RuPaul. (She turned up on this season's "Project Runway" as a guest judge in the drag costume challenge looking a little matronly. Who knew it was possible for a drag queen to look dowdy?)

Now reality television has thrust fashion industry players, its patois and its idiosyncrasies into the consciousness of the masses. ("The Devil Wears Prada" has also contributed, as the film appears to be on a near constant loop on pay cable television.) But while "Project Runway" offers evidence of the surge of emotion young designers might get from showing their work during New York fashion week, the overwhelming impression from most of these shows is of a cutthroat industry that miraculously has not imploded from antagonism and disorganization.

There are, of course, bits of truth in that version of fashion. Heaven knows the industry could use help in meeting deadlines, whether they are for the start time of a catwalk presentation or meeting the promised delivery date of merchandise to a retailer. And there was also truth in the 1980s version of fashion as a nonstop party blanketed in glitter. The fashion industry truly knows how to put on a gala. (Rule Five: Hold a casting for the wait staff so no unsightly hors d'oeuvre server ruins the aesthetics of the event.)

But as fashion melts into popular culture, the emphasis is on personalities, not product. Its reputation is being shaped not so much by the real players -- regardless of how much control they think they have over their images -- but by the TV producers, editors, weeping contestants and even the bloggers who can transform a single episode of a show into a cultural happening.

For an industry so conscious of image, the willingness to relinquish control has been startling. (This is a business, after all, that wants to vet photographers before they are allowed to take a picture of a dress.) And so many rotten or insufferable personalities have been unleashed on fashion television -- Jeffrey Sebelia, Santino Rice, Jade Cole, Tabatha Coffey -- it's hard to root for anyone, let alone an entire industry.